Finland’s newest national park gets a stamp

Postage stamps are a good way for mainstreaming biodiversity. Metsähallitus Natural Heritage Services and the Finnish Postal Service have an ongoing project on five national park stamps.

Photo: Finnish Postal Service

The first stamp was on the fell national park Pallas-Yllästunturi in Lapland, the second on a mire national park called Torronsuo in southern Finland. The third stamp on Finland’s fifth marine national park and the newest one Selkämeri in Finnish, Bottenhavet in Swedish and Bothnian Sea, was published today. One million stamps were printed of each in a country with 5.5 million inhabitants.

The next postage stamp will be on a forest national park and will be issued in May 2013 to celebrate the new grand visitor centre now being built in Nuuksio National Park, North West of Helsinki. The last stamp will be on a typical Finnish lake nature and will be published in 2014.

The most spectacular and nationally most significant landscapes have inspired postage stamp designers already for decades. The postage stamp series on national parks showcases Finland’s special natural features during different seasons.

The third stamp in the series depicts the summery marine nature of the Bothnian Sea National Park. The date of issue of the stamp was 7 May 2012.

Bothnian Sea National Park is the 37th national park in Finland and it was established in 2011. The name of the park is Selkämeri in Finnish. It is the fifth marine national park in Finland and it stretches over a distance of 160 kilometres on the western coast of Finland. A total of 98 per cent of the national park lies under the surface: the park protects the marine nature. Lighthouse islands and the archipelago attract boaters and paddlers.